Mumbai-based Macrotech Developers, formerly known as Lodha Developers, on Tuesday filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for its proposed initial public offering with capital market regulator SEBI, three people with knowledge of the matter told CNBC-TV18.

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CNBC Awaaz was the first to report Lodha Group’s plan to file the DRHP yesterday. “We e-filed the DRHP with SEBI yesterday. The IPO (initial public offering) size is about Rs 2,500 crores,” said one of the people involved in the process.

Macrotech Developers had appointed ten merchant bankers for the proposed share sale. Kotak Securities, Axis Capital and JP Morgan have been named lead advisors for the issue, said multiple people aware of the matter. Other investment banks appointed by Macrotech Developers include JM Financial, SBI Caps, ICICI Securities, Edelweiss Securities, IIFL Securities, Yes Securities, and Bank of Baroda Capital, CNBC_TV18 has learnt.

This is the realtor’s third attempt at launching a public offering after 2009 and 2018. The group attempted to launch a Rs 2,800 crore IPO first in 2009, but had to drop its plan due to the uncertain macro-economic environment in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. It then re-attempted to launch an IPO in 2018, and even got SEBI’s nod for the share sale but had to shelve its plans yet again due to the liquidity crisis in the real estate sector. Lodha Group’s proposed IPO size of Rs 2,500 crores is almost half of Rs 5,500 crores the group had intended to raise in 2018.

The proceeds from the share sale are expected to be used to pare down debt, which stood at Rs 17,176 crores as of March 2020. The group reported consolidated revenues of Rs 12,486 crores as of FY 2019-2020 and profits of Rs 742 crores. As of March 2020, Lodha Group had 38 projects spread over 23 million square feet, including marquee projects like the Trump Tower in India and Grosvenor Square in London, UK. It also had 19 projects in the planning stage at the time.

Lodha Group was yet to respond to CNBC-TV18’s query at the time of publishing this story.

First Published:Feb 16, 2021 11:08 PM IST